


even if you can

by weknowgirl



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Oneshot, Songfic, katya is an addict and trixie is a lonely ex-girlfriend, this is my first fic so be nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 20:23:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15008717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weknowgirl/pseuds/weknowgirl
Summary: Trixie arrives home from an exhausting night at work, lonely and longing for the life she had back in college.





	even if you can

**Author's Note:**

> hi, everyone! this is just a short little song fic i wrote in one night. it hasn’t been edited a whole lot and the song is mostly there because i thought it made for a good transition. this is my first ever fic so please please be nice!! feedback is super duper appreciated, i would love to hear from you! <3
> 
> -weknowgirl
> 
> (PS, say hi on tumblr if you’d like! my url there is also weknowgirl)

_Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene..._

_I’m begging of you, please don’t take my man._

 

Trixie put her rusty pickup into park and shut off the engine. It had been a long night at the bar, with drunken club-goers who had long forgotten what manners were, and men who leered at her over the cold drinks she’d just poured them, and throngs of sweaty bodies that she’d had to push through in order to close up on time. She was incredibly tired. She was tired of the long hours with bad pay. She was tired of the sleazy guys who ordered drinks all through the night and didn’t tip once. She was tired of coming home at five in the morning and smelling like someone else’s body odor. And she was tired of being twenty four and still not having a real job, a job doing something she wanted, a job that would actually make use of her music degree. Trixie went around back and heaved her guitar case out of her trunk. She climbed the three flights of stairs to her cramped apartment, sunk down into her favorite armchair, and turned the beat-up white acoustic in her hands, before strumming a familiar melody.

 

_Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene..._

_Please don’t take him just because you can._

 

It was nights like this when Trixie wished more than anything that she was back in college, where life had been easy and responsibilities few. She’d lived off her parents’ money and gone to class and partied with her friends and had her first kiss, then her second, her third, and more. She’d had her first boyfriend, her first break-up, and very soon after, her first girlfriend. She didn’t even remember the guy’s name because she’d found her first love and that had been so much more exciting than any guy. She spent three semesters sleeping more in that girl’s room than her own. Then, the girl had her first cigarette. Her first needle. Her first dealer. They’d had their first fight. In the end, Trixie left with a four-year degree, a rent to pay, and the scars of her first heartbreak. God, what she’d do to go back, to be in someone’s arms again. To dance around their tiny dorm room to songs that she hadn’t listened to since, to kiss in the moonlight and laugh in the rain and have a life again. Trixie was fucking lonely. She paused her strumming and rose, armchair creaking, to go pour herself a goddamn glass of Scotch.

 

_Your beauty is beyond compare,_

_With flaming locks of auburn hair,_

_With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green._

 

Trixie took a long sip from her glass and stared at the ceiling. Her eyes traced the long, jagged cracks in the plaster, and her mind wandered to a more desirable place: her memories. The memory was an odd thing. Trixie remembered exactly what her love had looked like, blonde bobbed hair swirling in the autumn wind as she looked at Trixie with those sparkling blue eyes that always sent her heart plummeting into her stomach. She had always stood on her tip-toes when they’d kiss because she was so short and Trixie was so tall, and she’d wrinkle her nose when she laughed, and she’d make a show of lifting Trixie onto the kitchen counter just because she could, and her eyes would grow pale as she snuck all-too-frequent cigarette breaks behind their building, and she’d stumble into the dorm late at night hunched over and exhausted and coming down from whatever high she’d had that day, and her whole face would grow wide with unspoken apologies the next morning as Trixie crossed her arms and walked out and refused to answer her calls for the rest of the day, and the tears in her eyes were the saddest, soberest blue in the world when Trixie finally broke and yelled at her and told her she wasn’t coming back, not that night, not the next day, not ever. Not ever. Trixie watched a tear drip into her glass. She hadn’t realized she was crying. She drained the cup and poured herself another before reaching back for her guitar.

 

_Your smile is like a breath of spring,_

_Your voice is soft like summer rain,_

_And I cannot compete with you, Jolene._

 

Trixie leaned back into her chair and sighed, plucking the strings absently and wishing the scattered melody could take her someplace life made more sense. Someplace that girlfriends stayed together and addictions were ended with just enough time and just enough love. She realized that she didn’t remember the first time they’d said “I love you.” She knew it had been said. It had been said every time Trixie watched her stumble drunkenly through the door, and it was punctuated with a sloppy kiss that Trixie never initiated. It had been said every time they settled into bed; it had been her way of apologizing to Trixie. “ _I love you_ ,” she would say, when what she meant was, “ _Are we okay?_ ” Trixie would sigh the same sigh every time. “ _I love you too_ ,” she always replied. “ _When will it stop?_ Will _it stop?_ ” is what she never had the courage to ask. It didn’t stop. She would stay up all night some nights, waiting for her love to crawl into bed muttering broken apologies and promising it wouldn’t happen again but it always, always did. Trixie watched her grow more and more pale, stay out more and more frequently. “ _I love you_ ,” she’d whisper. Trixie would be able to smell the booze on her breath and god-knows-what in her hair. “ _I love you too_.” Trixie stopped strumming. She eyed a pack of cigarettes on the table next to her drink. She flicked them off and they clattered quietly to the floor. She resumed.

 

_He talks about you in his sleep,_

_And there’s nothing I can do to keep_

_From crying when he calls your name, Jolene._

 

Trixie decided long ago that she hated cigarettes. She hated cigarettes and she hated joints and she hated chemicals she couldn’t pronounce and she hated needles. God, she hated needles. They reminded Trixie of the day she’d left her love. It had been a particularly bad night, which meant a particularly late night. She’d come tripping home, leaning heavily on the shoulder of some guy, some guy who’d left her laying at the doorstep like a mess for Trixie to clean up. Trixie had cleaned her up. Trixie had always cleaned her up. She’d wiped the mascara from her face, carried her to bed, and gently set her down on the cool sheets. Her skin, now drawn tight around her bones and almost ghost-white, was cold to the touch. Trixie had filled a cup of water and placed it on the bedside table with a couple tablets of aspirin. But this time, she didn’t climb under the covers with her, didn’t wrap her warm legs around her love’s frozen ones. She didn’t stay to hear another empty promise, another “ _I love you_.” She just couldn’t bring herself to. Instead, Trixie had walked away, out of the building and into the night. She had slept in her own dorm room, which had become entirely foreign to her, for the first time in months. When she’d awoken the next morning, puffy-eyed with yesterday’s makeup still dripping down her face, her roommate hadn’t asked any questions. Instead, Trixie had been pulled close in a warm hug and reintegrated into the home she’d left so long ago. Reaching the end of another glass, Trixie leaned over to pour more Scotch, but the bottle had been drained. She trudged into her apartment’s shabby kitchen and chucked the empty bottle of whiskey into the garbage. Trixie grabbed her phone from where it lay on the counter and instinctively clicked it open, smiling at the lock screen. It was a candid shot of her and her roommate, Kim, both grinning on her bed in matching bathrobes. They’d been painting their nails. She missed Kim. Trixie realized with a start that she hadn’t called in months.

 

_And I can easily understand_

_How you could easily take my man,_

_But you don’t know what he means to me, Jolene._

Trixie typed in her short passcode. _D-o-l-l-y_. Her thumb hovered hesitantly over her contact list. She scrolled down to K, not even slowing to a stop as she clicked the call button—hastily, before she could talk herself out of it— and held the phone to her ear. One ring, two. She held her breath. Maybe Kim didn’t want to talk to her. A third ring passed in silence, and a fourth. They hadn’t seen each other since Trixie went back to Wisconsin for Christmas. Now, it was June. Kim had probably created a whole new life for herself by now. A fifth ring. Trixie moved to hang up. A sixth. She stopped short as she heard a familiar message begin.

_Privyet! You’ve reached the number of Katya Zamolodchikova, a professional woman of grace and dignity. Or, you haven’t exactly reached her, because you’re listening to me! A voicemail! Modern technology is incredible. Leave a message and I will try to make time in my busy and luxurious day to get back to you!_

Somewhere during the message, Trixie’s mouth had fallen open in a not-quite-gasp. She didn’t manage to close it before the dial tone ended, and found herself wordlessly holding a phone to her ear and hearing only white noise for her efforts. There was immeasurable distance between her and the crackling static on the other side. She hung up without saying a thing, and decided that perhaps she didn’t want to call anyone after all. She went back into her contacts, and very, very carefully selected Kim’s name. As she suspected, Katya’s had been just before. A text window popped up. Trixie typed a short message, before hitting “Send” and abandoning her phone on the counter as she retreated into her bedroom for some rest.

 

_Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene..._

_I’m begging of you, please don’t take my man._

 

Trixie awoke to bright sunlight piercing her eyes, and she quickly drew her curtains closed. She rolled over, lethargic and grumbling, before relenting to the persistent morning and plodding to the kitchen. Without thinking, she picked up her phone and checked her messages.

 

**Trixie - 5:38 AM**

Hi kim. Miss u

**Kim - 9:26 AM**

girl wtf r u doing awake?? u need ur beauty sleep. not everyone can have my dazzling looks u know.

**Kim - 10:02 AM**

everything ok? i miss u too <3

 

**Kat ♡ - 5:47 AM**

Hey. Sorry I missed your call. It’s been awhile. Call me back?

**Missed call from Kat ♡. 5:48 AM.**

**Missed call from Kat ♡. 5:48 AM.**

**Missed call from Kat ♡. 5:49 AM.**

**Missed call from Kat ♡. 5:54 AM.**

**Missed call from Kat ♡. 5:58 AM.**

**Kat ♡ - 6:12 AM**

Nevermind. You’re probably asleep by now, huh? This is stupid.

**Kat ♡ - 6:19 AM**

Fuck, Trix. I miss you. I really, really miss you.

**Kat ♡ - 6:21 AM**

Sorry.

 

Trixie dropped her phone back onto the countertop with a thud and put her head in her hands, lacing her fingers anxiously through tangled hair. She mentally kicked herself for not having the presence of mind last night to just check who she was calling, dammit. It’s not like it was hard. And now Trixie owed them the decency of at least responding— she owed Kim and Katya both.

 

**Trixie - 12:07 PM**

Hey kim. Sry about last nite. Got back from the bar late. Forgot u wouldnt b up

**Trixie - 12:09 PM**

Everythings fine. I think. Just miss u a lot

 

Trixie set her phone down, less harshly this time, and went to go toast herself a bagel. Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she tried to think of what the hell she was going to say to Katya.

 

_Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene..._

_Please don’t take him just because you can._

 

Trixie had been sitting in front of her phone for several minutes, staring at the open chat window. Finally, she sighed as she began to type:

Sorry. Didnt mean to call

She backspaced the word “call” and replaced with “leave you,” before groaning and just deleting the message entirely. She started fresh.

 

**Trixie - 12:19 PM**

My bad. Wrong number

**Trixie - 12:21 PM**

Sorry

 

Trixie paused, rereading the messages Katya had sent her, and typed out another message before she could stop herself.

 

**Trixie - 12:25 PM**

U really miss me?

 

Her toaster emitted a loud beep, startling Trixie out of her seat and making her phone jump from her hand onto the floor. Cursing, she grabbed a paper plate and stomped over to take her bagel from the toaster. Just her luck, it was burnt. She was in the middle of scraping away the more charred bits when she heard her phone vibrate against the hardwood. Sighing and abandoning her blackened breakfast, she bent to pick it up and answered without checking the number.

“Hello?”

Her voice sounded groggy, even to herself, but the voice on the other line sounded wide awake and tense.

“Hey, Trix,” it breathed.

 

_You could have your choice of men,_

_But I could never love again,_

_He’s the only one for me, Jolene._

 

She hadn’t heard that voice in over a year. It sounded exactly the same as she remembered.

“Katya.”

Trixie winced. She hadn’t meant to sound so cold. She swallowed down the burn of the past and forced herself to sound more casual, for a conversation that was sure to be anything but.

“Why did you call me?”

Trixie heard a humorless chuckle above the light crackles of static in her ear.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Trixie couldn’t help but let that frozen edge back into her voice.

“I told you, it was a wrong number. I didn’t intend to call you.”

“Wrong numbers don’t happen so often, with contacts and names and stuff, modern technology is awesome like that!”

Trixie heard the unmistakable sound of Katya’s enthusiastic palm smacking some unfortunate table somewhere, and laughed quietly to herself.

“Yeah, well,” she began defensively, “I was drunk and your name is right before Kim’s.”

Trixie wondered why she was bothering to explain herself to Katya. She wondered why she didn’t just hang up.

“Oh.” The voice sounded almost deflated.

“Are you still in Boston?” Trixie asked, hoping to keep conversation light.

“Yeah. Moved back with my mom.”

“Cool.” Trixie made a face at herself. She never said that word.

“Cool,” Katya said back. A drawn-out silence enveloped them both.

“Come over,” Trixie blurted out without thinking. “I live where Violet used to. We can talk here. Uh, if you want.”

Trixie knew it wasn’t possible, but she could swear she heard Katya smiling through the phone.

“Be there in ten.”

The line clicked off and Trixie immediately started scrambling to get ready, wondering all the while what the hell she had been thinking and why the hell she was suddenly grinning so much.

 

_I had to have this talk with you,_

_My happiness depends on you,_

_And whatever you decide to do, Jolene._

 

Kat was in her home. Katya was in Trixie’s home. Katya was leaning against Trixie’s kitchen doorway and playing with her hands in the most nervous way and she looked older and her skin was soft and lightly tanned and her blonde hair was dyed black and she smelled like autumn and cigarettes and she was wearing a red dress that just barely covered her thighs and a chunky black necklace that dripped down to her stomach and she looked so out of place against the faded, peeling backdrop of the apartment‘s wallpaper that it made Trixie want to just lift her up and take her away forever. Katya looked up at her with those clear blue eyes that Trixie had fallen in love with all those years ago, and opened her mouth to speak.

“I really did miss you, you know.”

“I... I missed you too,” Trixie found herself saying, and she realized that she really, really had. “You look good.”

Katya blushed a light red. “You too.” She tugged on her sleeve and shifted her weight between her feet. “So, uh. I’ve been clean.”

Trixie’s eyebrows knitted together and she was about to point out the cigarette smell, but thought better of it as Katya continued on.

“Well, mostly clean anyway, I haven’t cut the smoking but I’m done drinking three months now, and I’ve long since quit all the hard stuff and I haven’t thought about using in god knows how long and I’ve been going to these big group meeting things and I have a therapist and when I go out with my friends I have cranberry juice and it works, Trixie, it really works.”

Katya paused in her rambling, looking as if she suddenly remembered to breathe.

“I’m an addict and that’s not going to stop but I’m getting better and I wanted you to know that, I’ve wanted you to know for a long time but I didn’t think you’d ever want to talk to me after the mess I made of our senior year and God, I am so fucking sorry, Trix.”

Trixie felt a single line of mascara run down her face, and before she made sense of what she was doing she crushed the shorter girl into a long hug.

“Don’t be sorry,” she heard herself whisper. “I’m so, so proud of you, Kat.”

Strong arms wrapped back around her and Trixie smiled as she remembered how Katya’s muscle tone had always caught her off-guard. Some things never change.

 

_Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene..._

_I’m begging of you, please don’t take my man._

 

They hugged like that for a long time, neither of them quite ready to let go of something they’d each unconsciously wanted for over a year. Trixie had really, really missed this. She breathed in deeply, basking in the warm glow of glorious human contact, before slowly, gently pulling away to gaze back into Katya’s eyes, which were brimming with tears. Trixie wiped the droplets away without thinking, and out of the corner of her eye, saw Katya lift herself onto her tiptoes. Trixie knew it was a silent question, and God, the answer was yes. She tipped Katya’s chin up toward hers, and gently pressed their lips together. Her mind began flipping through every single kiss they had ever shared, like she was scrolling through a photo reel. Trixie shoved the images away and focused all her attention to the present. She didn’t want to miss this newest snapshot. She felt Katya’s mouth press more firmly against hers and she sighed softly, allowing her in. Katya’s lips felt so incredibly right and her skin was so inviting and she fully had smoker breath but Trixie couldn’t find it in herself to care as she smiled against Katya’s teeth and wondered why she hadn’t dialed the wrong number any sooner. Slowly, though, she eased out of the kiss and pressed her forehead against Katya’s, taking another long look into her eyes.

“Kat?”

“Yeah?”

Trixie took a deep breath.

“I love you.”

Katya smiled a smile that could light up a thousand galaxies.

“I love you, too.”

 

_Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene..._

_Please don’t take him even though you can._

 

Trixie and Katya sat curled up together in Trixie’s favorite armchair, Trixie’s cool legs wrapped loosely around Katya’s warm ones. Trixie ran a hand through Katya’s dyed hair and decided black suited her well after all. Her musings were broken by the buzzing of her phone.

 

**Kim - 1:06 PM**

u gonna b ok?

 

Trixie stole another glance down at Katya, whose eyes were still closed contentedly, before responding.

 

**Trixie - 1:06 PM**

Yeah. I think things are gonna be just fine

 

She shut her phone off and set it aside, and her fingers resumed in their path through Katya’s curls. Trixie sat back, humming a happy tune to herself.

 

_Jolene..._

_Jolene..._


End file.
